Library News Blog

CQ Researcher explores a single hot issue in the news in depth each week. Topics range from social issues to environment, health, education, and science/technology. Reports on international topics such as torture, nationalization of energy resources, and peacekeeping around the world are also featured. We have access to coverage from 1923 to the present.

We are happy to present a new database: Foreign Policy magazine, covering 1970 to present and its website. FP focuses on leading global issues in national security, technology, markets, and energy & resources.

This archive contains manuscripts, books, broadsheets, and periodicals from 1790–1920. The collection covers Europe, North America, India and the Antipodes. It includes raw data about crime, its solutions, and the popular response.

We have purchased an outstanding collection of streaming video content in which criminologists describe their research in a way that is accessible to undergraduates. We have Meda Chesney-Lind talking about feminist criminology and abortion law, Robert Agnew on general strain theory, Joan Petersilia, Terrie Moffitt and many other active researchers describing their work, and other core criminal justice ideas. Students can see and hear e.g. a forensic anthropologist explaining how she identifies victims at mass crime scenes. Racial disparities, crime mapping, research methods, transnational crime, and the criminal investigation process are some of the many topics covered. Some films take us inside forensics labs, correctional facilities, and court rooms. Others show case studies, and/or connect research to policy and practice. In a few of the shorter clips, people working within the criminal justice system talk about their careers.

We hope these virtual guest speakers will be memorable for students, and help them see connections between what they are learning and the practice of research.

The collection consists of over 120 hours of film, with lectures from the University of Essex, documentaries from Passion River, the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Intelecom Learning, Twofour Tights, and interviews with researchers created by OHCP. All videos are tagged with a type label; lecture, tutorial, interview, documentary, video case, in practice, or key note. Each video and video segment in the collection has been assigned a persistent URL. Users can create their own clips with unique URLs for sharing with students via Blackboard, email, etc. Rolling text transcripts accompany each video. The videos are housed on the Sage Knowledge platform, which also includes reference book content from Sage and CQ Press. Users can conduct a single search across the platform to discover both video and text content; and some cross linking connects the two. We have purchased access to the collection in perpetuity.

Show a clip during class time, or assign as homework to reinforce the concepts introduced during the day! Flip the classroom and assign a video for students to watch at home before a class discussion or exercise. Or challenge students to find a relevant clip or screenshot to embed in their e-portfolio, PowerPoint or Prezi presentation.

Please see our Media guide for more about the Library's collections of documentaries, feature films, training films, and more, in streaming and DVD formats. Please contact the librarian responsible for media, Ellen Sexton, with questions, comments, acquisition suggestions.

Image: Double page spread of Souvenir Photo Album of the Rouckavishnikov Correctional Institution for Young Offenders. Showing young offenders with equipment for shoe-making and black-smithing.

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Criminal justice, broadly defined

The Special Collections has recently acquired a number of new pamphlets and other publications, following our mission to collect broadly and deeply on the topic of criminal justice, broadly defined. The selected titles listed below (organized by date of publication) illustrate very well how broadly criminal justice is defined in our collecting. Many of them record divergent opinions of the causes and solutions for criminal behavior; others record grisly crimes and murders (see image below). We acquired an early publication on fire suppression, as well as a few titles on reform and rehabilitation of juvenile offenders (see image above). All of these are available in our Special Collections Room by appointment, and some of them are available digitally on various platforms. Contact us at libspcoll@jjay.cuny.edu to read any of these.

Image: Life and confession of Reuben A. Dunbar, convicted and executed for the murder of Stephen V. and David L. Lester (aged 8 and 10 years). Page 24.

1564, Pius IV (Pope). A papal brief on homicide [in Latin]

1784, Edinburgh. Young. Observations upon fire: with a view to the best and most expeditious methods of extinguishing it, upon a new plan, with or without water.

1808, London(?). A comparative statement of the number of criminal offenders committed to several gaols in England and Wales…

1842, Boston. Sue(?) Fialto, or The chain of crime: a tale of guilt and passion. PQ2446 .M32 1843

1847, London. Neilson. Statistics of crime in England and Wales for the years 1834–1844.

1851, Albany. Life and confession of Reuben A. Dunbar, convicted and executed for the murder of Stephen V. and David L. Lester, (aged 8 and 10 years,) in Westerlo, Albany County, September 20, 1850. See image at right.

1871, Tallack. Humanity and humanitarianism: with special reference to the prison systems of Great Britain and the United States, the question of criminal lunacy, and capital punishment. HV8982 .T3

1876, Tatlock. The church’s duty in reference to the criminal classes: a sermon preached in St. John’s Church, Stamford, in aid of the Stamford Association Auxiliary to the Prisoners Friends’ Corporation of Connecticut. BV4464.7 .T38 1876

1886, Boston. Stetson. Literacy and crime in Massachusetts; and, the necessity for moral and industrial training in the public schools. HV6166 .S74 1886

1890, Moscow. Photographie Française. Souvenir de la Visite de Mrs les Members de IV Congrès Pénitentiaire International de St. Petersbourg, Asile Urbain Roukavichnikoff á Moscou. [Souvenir Photo Album of the Rouckavishnikov Correctional Institution for Young Offenders. Distributed at the IV Congrès Pénitentiaire International, St. Petersburg] See image at top of page

1900, Gettysburg, PA. How to Hypnotize in Court and Jury-Memory Systems-Fluency of Mind, Tongue and Pen.

GrantForward is an extensive database of funding opportunities from over 9000 sponsors including government, foundations, academic institutions and corporations. The Library’s one year subscription to GrantForward provided by CUNY Central, valid until the end of 2017, allows you to search for opportunities and save them in a personal account or profile. New users must use their John Jay email address to register for a free institutional account. By registering for an account, you can save your grant searches and create alerts for new funding opportunities. Once you create your profile, GrantForward will suggest funding sources that match your areas of research. You can manually enter your research areas into your profile or you can upload a CV or list a webpage containing your publications and GrantForward will automatically generate a list of recommended funding opportunities. As an added social media-type feature, you can conduct a profile search to find other researchers registered with GrantForward who share similar research interests.

In academia, you get access to many­—often hundreds—of scholarly databases. They seem to be free because they are free to you. Most often, they are not. The academy pays for them. Outside of academia, what are your options? Are you limited to open web resources?

For John Jay students and faculty, and everyone else who lives, works or attends school in New York City, you can also get access to scholarly and other types of databases through the New York Public Library (NYPL), the world’s largest public library system. Currently, the NYPL provides access to over 800 databases.

NYPL has four scholarly research centers and almost 100 neighborhood branches. Everyone at John Jay is eligible for, and should consider obtaining, a NYPL card. For those who prefer to access information 24/7, the vast majority of the NYPL databases are now available remotely. (John Jay community members may also have access to the Brooklyn and Queens public library systems, which also offer remote database access.)

As shown in the graphs below, the majority (322) of the databases that NYPL lists for researchers are freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. An additional 240 online databases are proprietary and only available to NYPL library card holders, bringing the total number of databases available offsite and online to 568!

The NYPL databases provide content that is as diverse as New York City, covering a full range of ages and interests. In addition to the well known NYPL research centers, an academic user with a NYPL library card can now get remote access to a broad range of many academic sources including Academic Search Premier, Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity, the Economist Historical Archive, Literature Resource Center, Project Muse, the full archive of the New Yorker, a plethora of reference titles from Oxford and other publishers including the Oxford English Dictionary, among many other academic titles.

If you are interested in improving your technical, business and creative skills, that same library card gets you remote access to Lynda.com and to Mango Languages, the easy-to-use foreign language database. Flipster, the popular magazine database, is available too—and from home—provided you have a NYPL library card.

Next time you think about library resources, think about public libraries, too. If our goal is to encourage lifelong learning, we should be doing whatever we can to deepen connections to public library resources that will be available for a lifetime.

This encyclopedia, edited by José Luis Morín, was selected by Library Journal as one of the Best Reference Titles of 2016. At John Jay, Professor Morín is the Coordinator of the Latin American and Latina/o Studies Major and Minor and is the Associate Director of the Ronald H. Brown Law School Prep Program.

The Library’s copy of this encyclopedia is a gift from Professor Suzanne Oboler, Professor of Latin American and Latina/o Studies at John Jay. She is Founding Editor of the academic journal Latino Studies (2002-2012).

Brotherton, D. (2004). The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang. New York: Columbia University Press. Reserve and Stacks HV 6439. U7 N432 2004

Caminero-Santangelo, M. (2016). Documenting the Undocumented: Latino/a Narratives and Social Justice in the Era of Operation Gatekeeper. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Ebook.

This list is not comprehensive. Please consult reference librarians for suggestions on finding more books and video resources and helpful hints on finding scholarly articles in our full-text bibliographic databases.

With its convenience and the ability to view from anywhere, anytime, streaming media is our preferred format for acquiring video content. As it isn’t always possible for us to get the content we want in that format, we still maintain a DVD collection. All our DVDs are cataloged and discoverable through OneSearch on the Library homepage, and may be shown in class or viewed in the Library by individuals or small groups. Take a short walk to the Library Reserve desk and you can pick up one of our thousands of DVDs.

When given the option of choosing their own topic, most students select a controversy of the moment. (As a historian I hope in vain to encounter students with historical topics, but that is a discussion for another day.) More often than not, their search begins, and ends, with Google. Granted, they will find a great deal of information, but is it the information that they need?

A better place to start is the Library’s homepage, where students can access a set of databases specifically addressing current events. Under Databases by Subject, there is a link to “Current Events.” The next question is, which one?

A good starting point is CQ Researcher. From obesity to immigration to poverty to affirmative action, students will find reports illuminating the issue. Each report includes background information, a chronology, maps and graphs, and a bibliography. There is also a Pro/Con feature with experts or advocates on either side of a question offering their view. For instance, an October 2010 report titled “Preventing Obesity” asks the question: Should soda be excluded from the products that food stamp users can buy?

A second database found under Current Events is Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Searching for obesity brings up a range of opinion pieces, such as “Unhealthy foods should not be marketed to children.” Here, students have the chance to read pieces with a particular point of view and then evaluate the information used by the author and the opinion offered.

A third resource is Ethnic Newswatch, a collection of news sources from the minority and ethnic press. How is the question of childhood obesity covered in these sources, and what anecdotes can the student researcher use to support his or her own argument?

These sources and more are conveniently grouped together, but the student needs to know first that this is available, and second how to get there. The first step, therefore, is for the classroom instructor to direct students to these resources. Time invested here will pay great dividends when the final papers are turned in.